


to keep him safe

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Bodyguard Romance, F/M, Force-Sensitive Leia Organa, POV Leia Organa, What-If, additional tags in comments as to not spoil, not the most cheerful fic, serious AU in a canon setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:27:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21729022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: Leia wakes from a nightmare and considers what she might do to protect the ones she loves.Established Boba/Leia
Relationships: Boba Fett/Leia Organa
Comments: 8
Kudos: 37





	to keep him safe

**Author's Note:**

> Jump to end notes for spoiler tags!

Leia’s dreams are filled with flames and ash. She dreams of destruction, of death, of failures. Those moments come to her each night and have for some time now. But lately, her dreams are more terrible with each passing hour. She dreams of losing a brother she has never known, of watching all she has ever fought for crumble into nothing.

She dreams of her home exploding into a thousand pieces and with that, she wakes up with a scream.

“Princess!” her guard shouts. His feet thud hard against the floor as he races to her side, then bows his head, waiting for further orders. His helmet has provided all the stats he needs to know that she is not in any danger, now that she is awake.

“I told you to stop calling me that,” Leia says, pushing herself into a seated position. Her long braids tumble over one should and she thinks that perhaps she might just cut them off, to stop dealing with the hassle of them.

“I am not one to go against your father’s orders.”

“At least not as long as you are on his payroll, am I correct?”

Boba Fett inclines his head. “Perhaps.”

“And after that?” her heart flies up, into her chest. It's strange to her that he can generate such a reaction from her. She has been trained to be calm and composed, always. To keep her rage, her hopes, all her strong emotions banked until she will need them. But one word from Boba and she loses all that careful control.

“I do not think of after until it is the proper time to.”

“But--” Leia grips the sheets between her fingers, a solitary mimic of the way she’d grasped at the bedding that night, weeks ago, when her guard had become her lover. That, for once, had been something she had chosen, not something assigned to her by her father. She had fallen in love with Boba in these long years kept safe in her peaceful home. He had been assigned to her when she, a brash seventeen year old had gone off, stolen a ship and flown as far as she could, to find a future she had only dreamed about.

Her father had chased her down, of course. There had been no punishment, not to her, he loves her too much. Loves her because she was all that was good in a terrible and cold universe, it seems to her, from the stories he tells. Loves her but cannot bear to lose her, not now. Not even if she wanted to join the fight to keep him safe.

“When you’re older,” he had said. “For now, stay safe. Study. You are a junior senator, is that not enough?”

It should have been. Though much of her work is done via comm screens and holos, Leia knows it should have been enough for her. But she had said nothing, sullenly glaring at her father.

“Your mother was a political leader at a younger age than you,” he had added and she knew he spoke of the woman who had died at her birth, the woman that Leia somehow remembered, impossible though it may be. “You have great power, Leia, and you will learn to weild it well.”

But for now, she must be kept safe.

So Boba Fett himself was assigned as her guard. Over the past five years, as she grew in power and knowledge, with the bounty hunter as her weapons master, she also grew rather fond of the man in armor.

Slowly, impossibly, Boba Fett grew to care for her too. If not love her, because Leia knew love was rare and bright and terrible, but at least, care for her. There were small moments where he would cherish her. Sit with her as they looked out the viewport window and she dreamed of all the planets she had yet to explore. Long hours where she worked on lessons and listened to him tell her of the things he had seen. He was not much older than her and yet, he knew so much more about the wide universe beyond her door.

And only a little while ago, had they become lovers.

After that was when the dreams began.

Leia is not fool enough to think the two are unrelated. She had been vulnerable, to someone, and now, she paid the price. Love would only destroy, she had been told. Now, she knew it to be true. 

  
Even if she still had hope this love would not destroy, not at all. Instead, perhaps, just perhaps, it could save them both. After all, were they not both trapped, in some ways? Her by the threat of the Emperor and him by his duty. If Boba would join her, she thinks, then she could have all she ever hoped for and her dreams would hold no power over her.

“What woke you?” Boba asks.

“A dream. My home. All of it, this whole place, was destroyed. I was powerless to stop it.”

“You are many things, Leia,” he says her name with the tone that conveys the smallest smile, to those who know it, “but you are not powerless.”

“Are you so sure?” Lately, it has felt as if her power remains locked away, bolted beyond her reach. She has tried so hard, tried and failed, so many times, to become the person she needs to be to protect her father, her family, from the Emperor.

She worries her father will fall, as he does in dreams, and she will not be able to stop it from happening.

She worries that all she hopes for is nothing in the eyes of the Emperor. He has taken so much from her, what would stop him from killing her father next? If she became too strong, if the Emperor knew she plotted against him, then her father's days would be numbered.

“Perhaps it is time for you to speak with your father about these dreams,” Boba says. “This is the eighth night.”

Leia rubs her face. He’s right, of course. “I don’t want to worry Papa. There is so much he already concerns himself with, so much he must do to keep me safe…”

“One day you may realize you can do that yourself.”

She springs out of bed, her bare feet cold against the durasteel floor. “Why Boba Fett, are you countering my father?”

“I am not,” he replies, shifting his posture into that of a guard and not of a concerned lover.

“Though you have in the past.”

“Perhaps.”

“I think that’s why he respects you. Because you challenge him.” Leia dresses quickly, sliding on a black Muutili silk robe over her night shift. She slides her feet into supple Cosia hide boots, made from the animals that only stalk the ice flats of Fest. It’s one of many planets she wishes she could see.

She has a list of planets that she longs to see. Naboo. Coruscant. Fest. And most of all, the gem of all of them, Alderaan.

It’s a beautiful planet, she has heard. A peaceful one, full of art.

There is little art in her life right now, beyond the paintings she makes and erases each day, before even Boba can see them. There is little life in her days, if she is honest with herself. But she is happy here, and she is safe.

Papa would have it no other way. He’s already lost her mother, after all. Once she is strong enough, once she can challenge the Emperor and win, she and her father will be free to explore the universe once more.

She can only hope, as silly as it may be, that Boba will join her.

At the very least, he follows her now, as she finishes her dressing by tying on her belt and then, as she does each time she leaves the room, she summons her lightsaber, her palm outstretched, beckoning.

The weapon flies into her waiting hand, its curved hilt so familiar to her that she takes comfort in it, as if the red light it could provide would be enough to keep her warm forever. “Come,” she says to Boba Fett, “let’s go speak to my father. If I am having dreams about the Death Star’s destruction, he must be the first to know.”

Boba Fett nods. He looks so handsome, she thinks, in his battered armor, covered with the signs of his strength. She wishes he would kiss her, now, before the night fades and dawn once more begins. “It is not wise to keep him waiting.”

Leia smiles at that. “Nor is it wise to keep me from what I want.” She waits in the doorway, frozen for a moment. “I am my father’s daughter, after all.”

Boba strides forward, facing her. With one hand, he tilts her chin up, so he can look into her eyes. “So you are.”

“And you’re not afraid of that?” Leia is no fool. She knows that Lord Vader is not a man many would trust to protect them nor wish to entangle themselves with the daughter of.

There’s a long moment, as Boba removes his helmet. Leia’s breath catches as she is once more rewarded with the sight of his handsome face. “Against my better judgement,” he begins, leaning down and capturing her lips in a kiss. “I’m not.”

Leia holds him there, desperately wishing the kiss would never end. Wishing for so much more than this tiny base could ever offer her. Wishing for things she could never name, things just as frightening as love. Boba's kiss seems to convey the same things back to her. She whispers his name, then, pleads. "Tell me you care."

"I think my actions speak enough for that."

"So it's true?" Again, she is soaring, flying on hopes that move faster than any TIE Fighter.

"Perhaps." he says once more, but this time, she is able to feel his smile against her own lips.

But she is her father’s daughter and she knows love will only destroy her. So, tears spill from her eyes as she kisses him, the tears that she wished she could have shed as she had watched her father die in her dreams. Leia vows that future will never come. She will keep her father safe as he has always protected her. Together, they will overthrow the Emperor. Only then will her father be free.

Only then will they be safe.

But they cannot do it alone. Her father is old, frail, despite his tremendous power. His body was ruined by those who betrayed him, those who said they had loved him.

Now, though, she thinks she has a chance, an ally in the fight both father and daughter have prepared for all these long years.

Leia presses closer to Boba, breathing in his scent, all crisp metal and ozone from his blaster. He, alone, from all those who had encountered her father, had been able to hold his own in a fight. Which meant he might be enough to help them win against the only one more powerful than Vader himself.

With Boba at her side, surely, Leia would be able to rule the galaxy.

“Help me,” she whispers to Boba. “You’re my only hope.”

**Author's Note:**

> Spoiler tags! Sith!Leia, Dark Leia, Darth Vader as Dad, stockholm syndrome.


End file.
